


I Don't Mind Letting You in (into My Life)

by linearoundmythoughts



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Disabled Character, Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, Fluff, I'm still back in my own AU timeline let me live here, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, honestly the fic i just posted is like part two of this i should've posted them together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 06:24:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9871361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linearoundmythoughts/pseuds/linearoundmythoughts
Summary: "Oswald could never go that long without praising Ed.Some truths of the heart are too hard to repress, he justified his sentimentality to himself."Crack-turned-into-serious-fluff because it's funny and writing dialogue and these two being sweet on each other is my favorite.





	

Oswald took another swig of wine from his glass and wiggled his feet as he and Ed finished laughing at the story Oswald had just finished.

There was nothing particularly funny about it—in fact, it was terribly sad, but too much wine and the comfort of knowing that Ed could relate made him feel positive, in spite of himself. Their evening had dragged on long past any reasonable bedtime. They had spent the evening chatting and drinking, curled on the couch in front of the fireplace together. Oswald had his legs draped down the couch, over Ed’s lap, and Ed gently rubbed his damaged leg the whole time. Flushing, Oswald took another, longer sip of wine and polished off the glass.

“Well—I have been talking about myself entirely too much this evening,” he said in one of his brighter tones. Ed shook his head, smiling, and Oswald huffed a slight laugh in response to seeing that softness he adored on Ed’s face.

They’d been sharing stories about embarrassing situations they’d found themselves in, and how exactly they made (or would have) any aggressors or conspirators to those scenarios pay; hence, their gleefulness over Oswald’s last tale. It was from his grade school days, when he’d finally gotten old enough to learn how to make the bullies pay twice the dividends on their transgressions. Blackmail was fun; violence was better. They’d both learned that as adults, and Oswald’s tales had drifted into the past, some were simply overdue revenge fantasies. It was so reassuring to be able to share them with someone, free of judgement.

Oswald reached forward to place his finished glass on the table in front of him, next to Ed’s already empty one. Sliding his other hand forward towards Ed’s hand on his knee, he pushed his fingertips under Ed’s palm, indicating that he’d like to hold hands. Ed picked up on what he was doing, switched the hand he had on Oswald’s knee, and looped the fingers of his now-free hand with Oswald’s.

“Tell me a story, Ed,” Oswald grinned. “It’s your turn, I would say.”

Ed’s smile stayed in place as he turned his head to face Oswald’s. “An embarrassing story or a story about my childhood?” he asked, seeking that finite clarification Ed so favored in life.

“Either. Both!” Oswald announced with a flourish of his free hand.

Ed stilled for a moment, his eyes going distant, the smile on his face frozen and faltering in the corners. Oh no. Oswald was learning (had made it his single-most studied mission, in fact) the significance of every one of Ed’s minute facial expressions, and this one wasn’t good. His childhood…perhaps he shouldn’t have gone there…Oswald had been feeling loose and free of consequence in their privacy, and had forgotten—

“Ed, please, only if you want to—” he started to explain.

“When I was six years old, I went on a camping trip,” Ed interjected, looking blank and serious. Oswald’s stomach dropped at whatever his lover might reveal, and he steeled himself to be supportive, reaching to hold Ed’s hands with both of his own. Ed turned to look down at what Oswald was doing, and seemed only slightly confused.

Staring into the fireplace, Ed continued. “A bear came into the tent, and I wasn’t sure what to do, so I faked being asleep.”

How frightening…Oswald had to force himself not to interrupt Ed with the meaningless little oohs and aahs and other exclamations Oswald naturally wanted to punctuate Ed’s speech with.

“I wasn’t sure how to pretend I was asleep in a way that the bear would understand, though,” Ed explained, looking at Oswald for only a moment before turning back away. “I used to read a lot of comic books, especially growing up,” he added, his tone jumping up a few steps into the higher, lighter voice Oswald remember him having when they first met. “Sunday comics, too. Anything I could get my hands on. The characters always have little letter Zs floating above their heads,” he demonstrated this and Oswald was too tipsy to not giggle. Ed was unfazed by that outburst and continued. “Because they’re snoring, but I didn’t know how to snore, or sound like I was, so I just went _**ZZZ**_ out loud.” He made the same sharp sound again, and then repeated it, each longer than the last, timed excellently to keep Oswald giggling. Heavens, hopefully this story wasn’t going to have a bad ending, because Oswald couldn’t contain himself.

“I made that sound for a very long time, very loudly, and the bear stayed in the tent! It didn’t approached me, which I thought was because I was ‘snoring,’ so I just keep making that noise. It was very loud!” he emphasised that detail once more, and Oswald crunched forward with giggles. Ed turned and watched him, his eyes softer than before.

“Eventually, the bear must’ve left, and…someone…got me to stop—I—I made myself stop, and so, I survived the bear’s unwelcomed visit.” Ed turned to face Oswald, raising his eyebrows before speaking again. “I never learned what snoring sounded like until I heard it in a radio drama years later. Now that I share my life with someone who snores almost every night, however, I am sure I will never forget the sound,” he smiled in mocking indignance.

Oswald devolved into a burst of laughter that made him tip his head backwards in its wake. When he leaned his head forward again, all the oxygen deprivation, alcohol, and blood rushing into his skull made him woozy for a moment (it wasn’t just because of the devious grin spread across Ed’s face, or the way that he was rubbing his thumb along the back of Oswald’s hand—the rush hadn’t come from how casually Ed spoke about their domestic intimacy, or the implication that it was a permanent arrangement he must enjoy enough to have already resigned himself to the labors of compromise and tolerance—no, no, Oswald was a little tipsy and happy, that was all, he told himself, to maintain some composure).

“You are as endlessly entertaining, Edward Nygma, as you are intelligent, handsome, and fascinating,” is what Oswald blurted out instead, his face flushed, his eyes closed, his grin so wide he could feel his face wrinkle. Oswald could never go that long without praising Ed. Some truths of the heart are too hard to repress, he justified his sentimentality to himself.

If there was any reason to be afraid of Ed’s reaction, there shouldn’t have been because he opened his eyes to the sensation of Ed’s glasses hitting his nose, as he bent in to kiss Oswald. It was a feeling Oswald still wasn’t used to, and wasn’t sure he would ever be—to be loved and love in return; to have the love of his life, his partner, his best friend steal kisses on a regular basis. How was Oswald so lucky?

He arched forwards, as he broke their hand holding to slide his arms around Ed, instead. What were once gentle, almost chaste kisses turned into many more (and much more heated) as Oswald swung his legs around to straddle Ed. They both clumsily worked at rearranging themselves, as Oswald moved to sit in Ed’s lap.

Oswald’s mind was never quiet for long, and all the little details of the moment between them looped through the back of his mind, but softly, subdued by the longing to have more and more of Ed; of whatever Ed was willing to give him. Their little oddities—Ed’s disdain and downright refusal to remove his glasses unless mandatory (Oswald wondered how many frames his unfortunately sized nose had already bent, and Ed was just silently replacing them). How Oswald loved to be touched anywhere by Ed’s beautiful hands, but he felt most loved when Ed gently rubbed his always-aching thigh—how Ed was the only person he allowed to touch his leg, ever. (Ed’s mouth was on his neck now, and the way he would breathe in the scent of Oswald’s skin when he wasn’t ravishing Oswald’s neck with a fervor Oswald couldn’t believe was _real_.) How he couldn’t explain either why he loved looking down on Ed like this, and how much of a thrill Ed got out of being underneath Oswald. He said it was the only time he didn’t have to think, and Oswald loved that he could make Ed free like that, that Ed could enjoy that peace because of Oswald.

“I was going to suggest we go to bed, but I don’t think I’m tired, now,” Ed said in a ragged whisper, his lips ghosting across Oswald’s skin. Oswald shuddered, and for one sharp moment, the world came back into focus, but all it took was Ed rocking his hips forward, groaning, Ed already lost in his own world again, for Oswald to snap back to the hazy electricity buzz of the moment.

“Who says we have to sleep?” Oswald told him; not a question, really, but a statement that he finished with a tug forward of Ed’s torso into his, his fist now balled up in the fabric of Ed’s robe. The accompanying shudder through Ed’s frame, the slight dig of Ed’s fingertips into his thigh, and Ed kissing him so deeply it almost knocked Oswald over, was exactly the answer he hoped for.

**Author's Note:**

> I do this as a writing exercise sometimes—I take something totally ridiculous that's on my dashboard and write a story around it where the challenge is to make everything _else_ organic, it's just the inspiration that is silly! I was fond enough of this one to share it with everyone. If Ed's story sounded absurd, [this would explain why. ;)](http://officialunitedstates.tumblr.com/post/89621159296/i-went-camping-when-i-was-6-and-a-bear-came-into) I also wrote this one months ago and posted it on my tumblr last month.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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